That's the way I always heard it should be

This is what our fridge and freezer look like right now since we picked up our 70 lbs of beef and our first CSA box. Already in the freezer were the containers of chicken stock and the fridge is also filled with the beer from New Glarus and Capital Brewery. Spotted Cow from New Glarus is my summer beer go-to: its wheaty and lemony and bright and perfect to drink outside by the grill. Then again, many beers are perfect when you are sitting outside on a summer afternoon by the grill.

In our first CSA box we got ramps, sorrel, sunchokes, spinach, parsnips, horseradish, chives, rhubarb, and a bunch of pussy willow branches that look amazing in a clear glass full of water. For dinner tonight, I defrosted some of the stock and made a ramp risotto. Then, I marinated the sunchokes in some orange juice, a bit of the orange mint oil, and salt and dumped that over a salad of roasted cherry tomatoes, lettuce, and sorrel.

Matt ate all of it.

Sadly, that has nothing to do with whether it was good or not, but I was really excited about it. I have been very vegetable sheltered and had never tried sorrel, parsnips, ramps, or sunchokes before tonight and was ecstatic to try them. I love the sorrel especially and want to try one of the many sorrel drink recipes I saw online or just keep nibbling on it like I am doing now. The sunchokes are really tasty raw, like a vasty improved water chestnut with a cleaner taste and I can not wait to saute them. Tomorrow night we are going to roast the parsnips.

And ramps!! They are really tasty and I loved the delicate flavor they added to the risotto: the earthy sharpness of an onion along with the clean taste of a leek. I was also nibbling on some of those greens.

Interestingly, as I was making dinner, NPR had on their episode on "Food Wars" and the announcer stated "whether you know it or not you are probably using foods from Monsanto as you cook tonight" and I looked around and thought "no, pretty sure I am not."

Finally, here is a link to one of Michael Pollan's blog posts on his experience joining a CSA. Though reading about his experiences with his Berkeley CSA, I am reminded of Gina's comments about Alice Water's idea of cutting food from your garden every day: its a little hard to sustain a lemon tree and pluck lemons in February in the Midwest.